5 Trends in the 2019 Singapore Finance Hiring Market

This article is authored by Sam Belcher, Experienced Recruiter – Finance, Transformation, Governance and Supply Chain from The Edge Partnership.

As we approach year-end, The Edge Singapore thought it might be useful to comprise 5 key takeaways from our recruiting travels in 2019, kicking off with the Finance / CFO space. Articles on Supply Chain, Sales & Marketing, Banking & Tech to follow after this.

Less Opportunity with the Blue Chips

Singapore from an Asia-Pacific perspective still holds the lion’s share of regional headquarters for MNC’s. However for the large blue-chips, the trend generally is to try to reduce their headcount in the regional hubs and push roles out to cheaper locations. As a result, when they do need to hire in Finance, they typically will have a strong pool of internal candidates to consider. We have seen more demand from mid-size MNC’s, SME’s and also local firms who have more reliance on external talent when vacancies arise.

Competition from Emerging Regional / Global Hubs

Singapore and Hong Kong typically have been the go-to markets for regional finance hubs, yet market and economic trends have started to somewhat buck this trend. Malaysia is now the dominant centre for global shared service functions and with many companies investing heavily in growing and developing manufacturing in Vietnam and Thailand, companies are also looking to expand there – the trade war has significantly accelerated this over the course of 2019. Thailand, in particular, is providing extremely competitive incentives and tax structures for MNC’s to develop their manufacturing and regional functions there.

Strong Emerging Finance Talent in Singapore

The face of finance is changing quickly and whilst there is still room for traditional finance skillset, the demand for more roles with more production-based responsibilities etc has already significantly diminished. Commercial candidates with strong Strategic and FP&A focused experience are still in demand and there are extremely strong emerging local candidates in this space coming through, who are tech-savvy and highly conversant with data / analytical tools.

Still a High Population of Expats in CFO / Senior Finance roles

There are still a high number of expats in the top regional Finance roles in Singapore. The CFO role is still a coveted expat position for many of the MNC’s – some of this for cultural / language reasons (particularly with French, German and Japanese firms) but also some firms who as yet haven’t been able to groom and develop their local staff into the CFO position. The need for expat CFO’s in Singapore may diminish though if Finance teams in the regional hubs are getting smaller and this year we have seen more demand for expats in other locations in Asia (often with expat packages on offer).

Plenty of Optimism Going Into 2020

Global dynamics generally are a little worrying and with the HK situation, Brexit and the Trade War still unresolved, it would seem as though these legacy issues will tip into 2020. However it would also seem that countries in SE Asia are already benefitting in terms of large scale investment as a result – a recent drive around the Eastern Seaboard in Thailand was testament to that. Despite this, however, we feel that whilst Finance roles in Singapore will continue to move up the value chain, they will also likely decrease in terms of volume and we there will be significantly more hiring in the other large cities around SE Asia.

Any views or comments on the above are very welcome – and if you’d like to catch up on hiring or career plans for 2020, please do also get in touch with us.

The Edge Partnership is a regional recruitment business with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and India.